Books that I Bought at the AHA Conference

Every time that I attend the AHA and ASCH conferences I always visit the main book exhibit. Even though the AHA book exhibit pales by comparison to that of the annual American Academy of Religion, I relish the idea of wandering the booths and reading blurbs of new historical works. As a religious historian, however, I try to limit my purchases to books in that specific discipline.

On this occasion, I limited my purchased to two books, which I can't wait to read. My first purchase was John Corrigan's new book on Emptiness: Feeling Christian in America, published recently by the University of Chicago Press. I had planned on attending the ASCH session devoted to a discussion on Corrigan's new book, but ended up missing it for various reasons. One of my former students at UTC is currently in the graduate program at FSU and has told me about a class that he took with Corrigan on "space" and religion. This intrigued me to buy the book and read his interpretation of how space (or the lack thereof) relates to Christianity.

Secondly, I bought a copy of Robert Love's Warnings: Searching for Strangers in Colonial Boston by Cornelia Dayton and Sharon Salinger. I have mentioned before in this blog how there are surprisingly very few modern books on colonial Boston. This book is about Boston's unwanted residents, namely poor immigrants who were pushed out of the city so that the established members of the community would not have to provide them with financial relief. This should be a great book, and helpful for my research on life in colonial Boston. Salinger wrote an excellent monograph on Taverns and Drinking in Early America that included lots of great material on Boston, and so I anticipate that this will be another solid piece of scholarship.

Now that I am back from the AHA and ASCH conferences it is time to get ready for the start of the spring 2016 semester, which begins for me on Tuesday.

On My Way to the ASCH Conference in Atlanta

 I have been enjoying a wonderful winter break, and feel refreshed for the start of the spring semester at UTC, which begins next week. Over the break, I turned in the manuscript for my forthcoming book with Oxford University Press entitled, Jonathan Edwards and Transatlantic Print Culture. I also have been relearning guitar with my oldest son, who received a Fender Squier beginner package for Christmas. I had so much fun playing his guitar that I went out and bought a used Fender Mexican-made Stratocaster deluxe player (pictured to the right). I have owned a Fender acoustic-electric guitar for years, but put it away when I quit my job as a stockbroker to start graduate studies. That was over ten years ago! If I had known how much fun it is to play the electric guitar, I would not have taken such a long hiatus!

I leave for Atlanta this afternoon to attend the annual ASCH conference. I won't arrive in time to attend any of today's sessions, which is a bummer because I really wanted to hear the panels assembling this afternoon to honor Mark Noll. Besides visiting the book exhibit, I plan on attending the Conference on Faith and History breakfast reception, the discussion on Grant Wacker's biography of Billy Graham, and the panel on John Corrigan's book, Emptiness: Feeling Christian in America. I also look forward to the presidential address by Margaret Bendroth and the reception that follows.

On Sunday morning, from 8:30am-10:30am, I will be chairing a panel on "Reframing Religious Reform through Childhood: From Sixteenth-Century England to Nineteenth-Century America." Rick Kennedy of Point Loma Nazarene University will provide commentary on the following papers:

• Bryan Maine (Baylor University): "Parents as Educators on the Eve of the Reformation: Richard Whitford and His 'A Werke for Householders' (1530)"
• Lincoln Mullen (George Mason): "The Religion of Children and Families in the Nineteenth-Century United States"
• Elise Leal (Baylor University): "Bringing Little Ones to Christ: The Evangelical Transformation of American Sunday Schools and Changing Attitudes toward Childhood Conversion, 1790-1824"

Please consider attending this session.

ASCH Presidential Address

I was blown away with details of Bruce Hindmarsh's ASCH presidential address last evening, "The Inner Life of Doctrine: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Calvinist-Arminian Debate among Methodists."

Admittedly, as an eighteenth-century religious historian, I probably enjoyed the lecture more than others in the audience. Based on the title, I expected Bruce to tackle the traditional debate between free will Arminians and deterministic Calvinists, but instead most of his talk provided an aesthetic analysis of evangelical thought using music, and, particularly, art. He dissected the paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds and the music of Handel, providing one of the most comprehensive and ambitious summaries of Methodist thought that I have ever heard. One of my favorite images that Bruce talked about was "Miss Macroni and Her Gallant at a Print Shop" (see below), which shows some of England's elites making fun of the portraits of William Romaine, George Whitefield, and John Wesley (among others) while a dog is pissing on one of the observer's shoes.



Another illustration came from James Hervey's Theron and Aspasio, an incredibly popular book by one of the Oxford Methodist "Holy Club" members, who wrote the book in the form of a dialogue between two men who debate the value of Calvinism, and especially the subject of imputed righteousness. If you are interested in learning more about Hervey and Theron and Aspasio, please take a look at my chapter on "Eloquent Calvinism" in Early Evangelicalism: A Reader.

Hervey was a Calvinistic Methodist who intended to write a polite work defending Calvinism for those with refined taste. And although very popular, and going through multiple editions, Theron and Aspasio was not received well by his friend John Wesley. Rather than go into the specifics of Wesley's intense debate with Hervey, allow me to refer you to my article, "John Wesley's Conflict with James Hervey and Its Affects in Scotland," published in 2012 in the Journal of Religious History. I was amazed at Bruce's insight from reading Theron and Aspasio. It is not an easy book to make it through in its entirety, but he was able to point out some very interesting details, such as the presenting of doctrine as a work of art.

I was sorry to have missed the end of the Colts game yesterday, but it was worth it to have attended Bruce's lecture.

Insomnia, Print Culture, the Bebbington Quadrilateral, and Conceived in Doubt at the ASCH

One of the downsides of attending conferences for me is that I almost always have insomnia. From my days as a graduate student to the present, I have grown accustomed to reading, writing, and even sleeping with a steady flow of noise. It may be hard to believe, but I am most productive when I work at home with my children playing somewhere in the house, my wife on the phone or talking with my boys, and even when the television is on in the background. My friends at graduate school did not believe me when I told them that I pored through monographs with the television on and my children playing in the same room until they heard testimony to this fact from my wife and kids. I even require noise while sleeping. Since the beginning of my seventeen-year marriage, I have fallen asleep to the ambient sounds of a noisemaker that plays throughout the night. My lived experience of operating amidst constant clamor is contrasted when I am away from home. When I attend conferences, and stay in a hotel, I suddenly experience nearly complete silence, and I find it eerie. This kind of silence strikes my senses as unnatural and almost inevitably leads to insomnia for me throughout my time at the conference. After three or four days of functioning on only a few hours of sleep, I am desperate to return to the comfort of my home where there is more steady pattern of familiar sounds.

I awoke from about two hours of sleep on Friday, feeling like a zombie as I headed to breakfast with my fellow panelists before our 8:30am-10:00am session on "Printing Evangelicalisms: Evangelical Book Culture across Three Centuries," where I gave my paper on "The Role of Samuel Kneeland and Daniel Henchman as Jonathan Edwards's Chief Printer and Publisher at Boston." I think that all of the panelists, including myself, were shocked that the room was packed with people at such an early time in the morning. My fellow panelists Keith Grant and Daniel Vaca gave excellent papers, and I was particularly pleased with Catherine Brekus's insightful comments as the respondent. It was also nice to meet some of the people in the audience, including Rhys Bezzant, who has an exciting new book out on Jonathan Edwards and the Church, published by Oxford University Press.

After "Printing Evangelicalisms," I attended the 10:30am session, "Evangelicalism in Modern Britain Turns-Five: Re-Examining David Bebbington's 'Quadrilateral' Thesis." My friend Charlie Phillips and I put this panel together and sponsored the session. The papers by Kelly Elliott, Tommy Kidd, and Amanda Porterfield exceeded my expectation in their thoughtful analysis of Bebbington's book. I was equally impressed with Bebbington's response to each of the papers. He seems to thrive in these kinds of settings.

The other interesting session that I attended was on "Doubting the Democratization Thesis: A Roundtable Discussion of Amanda Porterfield's Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation." After hearing the glowing reviews of Michael Altman, James Byrd, and Kathryn Gin Lum, I awoke from my catatonic sleepless state when Mark Noll took the lectern and broke the series of compliments by offering a respectful, but sharp criticism of Amanda's book. Even though Mark commended Conceived in Doubt at the end of his paper, I was surprised at the extent to which he excoriated her thesis. I thought that Amanda's response throughout the whole of the session, and even with regard to Mark's comments, was extremely gracious, demonstrating a model on how scholars should respond in these kinds of situations.

After this final session, I ate dinner with the Bebbington panelists at Smith and Wollensky, which UTC and the Maclellan Foundation sponsored as a way of thanking the contributors.

Now that I have had one hour and a half of sleep, perhaps I will go exercise. I wonder if the hotel gym is open at 2:30am.

Washington D.C. Bound

I am traveling today to Washington D.C. for the American Society of Church History annual conference. I look forward to hearing Bruce Hindmarsh's presidential address, "The Inner Life of Doctrine: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Calvinist-Arminian Debate among Methodists," as well as many of the very interesting papers listed on the conference program.

On Friday, January 3, from 8:30am-10:00am, I am giving a paper entitled, "The Role of Samuel Kneeland and Daniel Henchman as Jonathan Edwards's Chief Printer and Publisher at Boston." The title of the session is: "Printing Evangelicalisms: Evangelical Book Culture across Three Century." Along with myself, Keith Grant, a PhD student at the University of New Brunswick, will be speaking on "Reading the Evangelical Atlantic in Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia," and Daniel Vaca, visiting fellow at Princeton's  Center for the Study of Religion, on "Book Bound: The Paradox of Fundamentalist Biblicism," with Catherine Brekus providing commentary.

Please don't forget to check out the session on Friday, January 3, from 10:30am-12:00pm entitled, "Evangelicalism in Modern Britain Turns Twenty-Five: Re-Examining David Bebbington's 'Quadrilateral' Thesis," sponsored by UTC and the Maclellan Foundation and chaired by Tim Larsen. It should be a lively event, with panelists Thomas Kidd, Amanda Porterfield, and Kelly Elliot giving papers that analyze Bebbington's definition of evangelicalism, and a final commentary by Bebbington. If all goes well, the Maclellan Foundation and UTC will sponsor another session on the 25th anniversary of Evangelicalism and Modern Britain at the Conference on Faith and History meeting at Pepperdine University next fall, with a completely new set of panelists.

Some Notable Sessions at the Upcoming ASCH Conference

I see that there is now a draft of the winter meeting of the ASCH conference at Washington D.C. in early January 2014. I will be giving a paper in the following session:

Printing Evangelicalisms: Evangelical Book Culture across Three Centuries

Friday, January 3, 2014: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM

Washington Hilton, Embassy Room

Chair: Catherine A. Brekus, University of Chicago

Papers:

The Role of Samuel Kneeland and Daniel Henchman as Jonathan Edwards’s Chief Printer and Publisher at Boston

Jonathan M. Yeager, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Reading the Evangelical Atlantic in Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia

Keith Grant, University of New Brunswick

Book Bound: The Paradox of Fundamentalist Biblicism

Daniel Vaca, Princeton University

Comment: Catherine A. Brekus, University of Chicago

Some of the sessions that look interesting to me include:

Considering Lamin Sanneh’s Summoned from the Margin: Homecoming of an African

Thursday, January 2, 2014: 3:30 PM-5:30 PM

Washington Hilton, Cardozo Room

Chair:Todd F. Hartch, Eastern Kentucky University

Speaker(s):

Dyron Daughrity, Pepperdine University

Isabel Mukonyora, Western Kentucky University

Comment:Lamin Sanneh, Yale Divinity School 

The Protestant Reception of Medieval Mysticism: Lutherans, Puritans, and Evangelicals

Thursday, January 2, 2014: 3:30 PM-5:30 PM

Washington Hilton, DuPont Room

Chair:Adrian Chastain Weimer, Providence College

Papers:

The Reception of Medieval Mysticism in the Late German Reformation: The Case of Martin

Moller’s "The Great Mystery," (1595)

Ronald K. Rittgers, Valparaiso University

Gazing on the Beauty of God: Thomas Watson’s Mystical Theology of the Beatific Vision

Tom Schwanda, Wheaton College (Illinois)

"Wrapt and Swallowed Up in God": Jonathan Edwards Falls in Love

Rhys Bezzant, Ridley Melbourne University

Comment:Adrian Chastain Weimer, Providence College

Evangelicalism in Modern Britain Turns Twenty-Five: Re-Examining David Bebbington’s "Quadrilateral" Thesis (sponsored by UT-Chattanooga through a grant given by the Maclellan Foundation)

Friday, January 3, 2014: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM

Washington Hilton, Albright Room

Chair: Timothy Larsen, Wheaton College (Illinois)

Papers:

The Bebbington Quadrilateral Travels across the Empire

Kelly Elliott, Abilene Christian University

Interstices for the Holy Spirit in Our Evangelical Geometry

Thomas Kidd, Baylor University

Affective Additions to a Traditional Definition of Evangelical Orthodoxy

Amanda Porterfield, Florida State University

Comment: David Bebbington, University of Stirling 

Fracturing a Global Empire: Religion and Place in the American Revolution

Friday, January 3, 2014: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM

Washington Hilton, DuPont Room

Chair: Anna M. Lawrence, Fairfield University

Papers:

Evangelical Religion and Revolution in the Atlantic World: The Methodist Experience in Canada and the Caribbean

Christopher C. Jones, College of William and Mary

The Triumph of the Old Side: Presbyterians and the Coming of the American Revolution in the Middle Colonies

John Fea, Messiah College

"With tears the nation’s sins lament/The churches, and our own": English Anglicans and The American Rebellion

Katherine Carte Engel, Southern Methodist University

Comment: Mark Allen Peterson, University of California, Berkeley 

Texts and the Origins of Liberal Religion in America, 1880–1950

Friday, January 3, 2014: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM

Washington Hilton, Embassy Room

Chair: Lydia Willsky, Vanderbilt University

Papers:

Evangelicals and the Progressive Movement: Embodying Scripture in a Reforming Age

Matthew Bowman, Hampden-Sydney College

"I had not yet learned to read books": The Role of Texts in Liberal Protestant Conversion narratives

Elesha Coffman, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary

Reading Liberally: The Cultural Dynamics of American Spirituality in the Twentieth Century

Matthew S. Hedstrom, University of Virginia

Comment: Lydia Willsky, Vanderbilt University 

Lunch: Celebrating the Career of Elizabeth Clark

Friday, January 3, 2014: 12:30 PM-1:45 PM

Washington Hilton, Gunston Room

Speaker(s):

Grant Wacker, Duke University

Blake Leyerle, University of Notre Dame

Robert Wilken, University of Virginia

Comment: Elizabeth A. Clark, Duke University 

America’s Wars: Revealing Divisions and Transforming Beliefs

Friday, January 3, 2014: 2:30 PM-4:30 PM

Washington Hilton, Albright Room

Chair: Darryl G. Hart, Hillsdale College

Papers:

A Church Divided: American Catholics Debate the Spanish-American War

Benjamin Wetzel, University of Notre Dame

"Forever a Bone of Contention": Debating Christian Notions of Peace during World War I

Cara Burnidge, Florida State University

Protecting "The Cleanest, Most Manly Soldiers the World Has Ever Seen": The New England Watch and Ward Society and the Battle to Suppress Prostitution during World War I

Paul Kemeny, Grove City College

Marching On: Julia Ward Howe, the Battle Hymn, and Romantic Nationalism

Richard Gamble, Hillsdale College

Comment: Darryl G. Hart, Hillsdale College 

Doubting the Democratization Thesis: A Roundtable Discussion of Amanda Porterfield’s Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation

Friday, January 3, 2014:2:30 PM-4:30 PM

Washington Hilton, Cardozo Room

Chair: Katherine Carte Engel, Southern Methodist University

Speaker(s):

Michael Altman, Emory University

James Byrd, Vanderbilt University

Kathryn Gin Lum, Stanford University

Mark A. Noll, University of Notre Dame

Comment: The Audience 

Exporting la Croix, Importing le Monde: French Catholic Missionaries Take on the Globe

Friday, January 3, 2014: 2:30 PM-4:30 PM

Washington Hilton, Embassy Room

Chair: Sue Peabody, Washington State University at Vancouver

Papers:

“They Are Proud to Wear the Chains”: Slavery in the Shaping of French Missions to the Mascarenes, 1712–89

Nathan Marvin, Johns Hopkins University

Teaching Authority: The Sacred Heart Sisters' Mississippi River Valley Mission, 1818–30

Christine Croxall, University of Delaware

Interior Motives: Spiritan Missionaries, Plantations, and Salvation in Senegal, 1845–72

Jenna Nigro, University of Illinois at Chicago

Comment: Michael Pasquier, Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge

Religion and the American Civil War: History and Historiography

Co-Sponsor: American Historical Association

Saturday, January 4, 2014: 11:30 AM-1:30 PM

Washington Hilton, Columbia Hall 3

Chair: Mark A. Noll, University of Notre Dame

Papers:

The Need for Moral Evaluation of the Conflict

Harry S. Stout, Yale University

Treatments of the Religion of Abraham Lincoln

Allen C. Guelzo, Gettysburg College

The Role of Religious Institutions in Establishing Schools for Freed Slaves

James M.McPherson, Princeton University

Fruitful Directions for Further Work on Religion and the Civil War

George Rable, University of Alabama

African Americans, Religion, and the Civil War

Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Washington University, St. Louis

Comment: The Audience

The Politics of Enthusiasm in the Early Modern Anglo-Protestant World

Co-Sponsor: American Historical Association

Sunday, January 5, 2014: 8:30 AM-10:30 AM

Marriott Wardman Park, Marriott Balcony A

Chair: Phyllis B. Mack, Rutgers University–New Brunswick

Papers:

"Contempt of Authoritie" and the Politics of Ecstatic Religion in the Early Restoration

Adrian Chastain Weimer, Providence College

Fighting Enthusiasts in the Early English Enlightenment

Paul C. H. Lim, Vanderbilt University

The Feeling of Emptiness in American Christianity

John Corrigan, Florida State University

Comment: Phyllis B. Mack, Rutgers University–New Brunswick